Throughout the 1980's, the compact cassette was one of the most commonly used formats of prerecorded media for buying and transporting music. By the early 1990's, the music industry started to move away from the cassette format in favor of newer technologies. Compact discs (CDs) followed by MP3s became the industry standards. However, the cassette remains a popular icon for generations of music lovers.
The ability to transport the music of choice has long been a key desire of consumers. Although, a traditional cassette player is not necessarily standard equipment in new vehicles at present, many pre-owned vehicles in service and on the market are equipped with cassette players. Similarly, while portable or home audio equipment newly available through retail outlets are rarely equipped with a cassette player, there are many pre-existing units available in homes and businesses as well as in the resale market.
Today, consumers obtain and play audio data, whether it be music, book readings and the like, through digital processing equipment. Today's consumer, rather than purchasing a cassette tape bearing a favorite artist's recordings, purchases rights to download an instance of an artist's audio work. This process may be achieved through a personal computer, hand held device, smart phone, or similar device accessing a website available via the Internet that allows a consumer to download digitally stored audio files to be stored on such a device. These devices often serve not only as the repository for the audio file but also as the playback function. Personal computers are equipped with a sound card and speakers to permit perceptible playback of the audio files. Hand held devices, such as tablets, smart phones, portable MP3 players and the like include similar functionality. Alternatively, these devices may interface with more sophisticated stereo equipment to produce a more refined sound. Various hand held devices are able to receive compressed data files for storage and later playback by the same device. These devices include application programs, typically provided by the device manufacturer or otherwise downloadable from the audio file retailer that permits storage and playback of the audio file. Examples of such devices are smart phones and portable MP3 audio players. Use of headphones, ear buds or connection to speakers and/or stereo equipment enables the user to hear the recordings.
The ability to connect devices wirelessly is known in the art, as are standard systems and protocols that permit a plurality of wirelessly enabled devices situated within a local area network (“LAN”) to communicate. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol that has facilitated replacing connections via cables between various devices. The Ethernet IEEE 802.11 standard, known to those skilled in the art, enables a wireless extension of the Internet using the TCP/IP protocol standard. WiFi connections allowing users to access the Internet are enabled by this IEEE protocol. Additional wireless connectivity standards are known in the art and are expected to be developed due to demand.
One of the most appealing features of the cassette was the art of making a mixed tape (commonly known as a “mixtape”). A mixtape is a collection of music from different sources that has been hand-picked, and often (but not always) built around a theme. The mixtape provided a fun, creative, and personalized way to share music with those you cared about. The problem with modern digital audio file downloading, storing and retrieval systems is that they lack the nostalgic element that came with creating the homemade mixtape. While a user of modern equipment may certainly download works of various artists along a common theme, the ceremony of giving the created mixtape to another is lost as the modern equipment available on which digital music files are stored is too expensive to provide as a token of one's affection. Thus, there is a need in the art for a portable and compact device that incorporates the capability to download, store and playback digital audio files and serves as a standalone audio device that also operates as a classic cassette player, that is at the same time inexpensive enough to provide as a novelty gift.